


always come back to me

by rosestone



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18704461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosestone/pseuds/rosestone
Summary: What happened after the end.





	always come back to me

**Author's Note:**

> Contains major spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. If you haven't seen it yet, do not pass Go, proceed at own risk, etc.
> 
> (Damn, it's hard to write non-spoilery summaries...)

"This is it, Peggy," Steve said, leaning forwards.  His expression was almost painfully earnest.  "I'm here now.  Finally.  And I can stay."

He didn't take her hands.  Hadn't touched her at all, in fact, since that first moment when she'd seen his face and staggered in shock, clutching at him to prove he was real.  It wasn't hard to guess why.  He could see exactly the same problems with this plan as she could, after all.

He was waiting for her to say no.

"I've missed you so much, my darling."  She had.  All those long nights, those days spent trying not to stare at men parading their sweethearts around the way she'd dreamed Steve would one day.  And just when she'd thought she was safe - oh, she'd stopped believing she'd find someone else to love, but that hollow at the centre of her chest had eased with time and work and friendship - here he was.  The old love had roared up in her like a bonfire, heat she'd forgotten she missed spreading to every inch of her body, making her lightheaded with delight.

He half-smiled, glancing down at his hands as if he thought that would make this easier.  "But?"

She reached forwards and took his palms between hers.  She'd forgotten how much larger they were, how warm.  "You know as well as I do you'd be far too tempted to change the past."

"I can manage."

"Can you?"  She couldn't help but smile.  She'd heard far too many stories about him from Sergeant Barnes, after all.  "Would you really be able to keep yourself from trying to solve every injustice you know will happen - or every injustice that's happening _now?_   Could you really be happy knowing you hadn't done everything possible to make the world a better place?  Could you be happy without a fight to throw yourself into?  Because that's the choice you're making, darling.  Nobody could ever see your face again.  You're far too well-known.  You'd have to hide here - no career, no lobbying politicians, no dramatic fights with fascists or whoever you ended up setting yourself against next - none of it.  I'd never even be able to tell anyone I had a lover, for fear they'd want to meet you."

"Peggy," he said, voice low.

"I know, darling.  I love you, so very much, but the thought of how unhappy you'd be trapped like that - no.  We need a different plan."

"You mean I have to go back.  Alone."

"Not quite."  She paused, lips pursed.  "Unless I vanished without a trace around this point in history, in which case I think going to the future would be the simpler option."

"What?  No.  You were in charge of SHIELD, Peggy.  Are in charge, I mean.  You never..."

"Not that, then."  She tapped the device wrapped around his hand.  "This is how you travelled back, isn't it?"

"Yes.  Why?"

"Can it travel through space as well, or only time?"

"It does both.  Peggy -"

"So you can go whenever and wherever you like, then."  She sat back, unable to keep the smile from her face.  "And always come back to me."

He stared at her, eyes wide.

"That seems like it solves the problem rather neatly," she went on.  "If you aren't here for long periods of time, you won't have to worry about temptation.  You can go find problems to solve that won't derail the future and potentially make whatever disaster your people invented time travel to prevent worse - and it'll make hiding your presence from SHIELD rather easier -"

"Peggy," he said, a grin spreading across his face.  "That's -"  He leaped up, hauling her up with him, and twirled her around the room, laughing.  "That's brilliant.  In fact - I'll be back."

She watched, wide-eyed, as a white suit enveloped him and he shrank to nothing.  That certainly wasn't how she would've expected time travel to look.

Before she had more than a moment to think about it, though, he was back, cupping some kind of model in the palm of his hand.

"What is it?" she said, stepping forwards for a closer look.  "Some kind of plane?"

"It's a spaceship."

She shot him a severe glance.  "You'd better keep that well out of sight, Steve."

"Don't worry, I will.  But don't you see - if I'm in space, it'd be practically impossible for me to ruin the future.  And once I've been somewhere I can set the coordinates here -" he tapped his wrist, "- and then I'll always be able to get back there easily.  Though I suppose I'll have to be careful to keep out of Nebula's people's way - and the Asgardians - and Thanos - well, all right, maybe it won't be practically impossible, but it's a big universe.  I'm sure I can manage it."  He grinned giddily at her.

"Well," she said, smiling up at him, "don't get too excited by the possibilities just yet.  There has to be some kind of benefit to having one's long-lost lover travel back in time for a meeting, and I for one -"

He wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his lips to hers, and... yes.

This was what she'd dreamed of for all those years.

**Author's Note:**

> this is quite possibly the most canon thing i've ever written  
> thoughts on the story:
> 
> obviously Peggy is (allegedly) married in canon.  possibilities for this include:  
> a) she marries a different dude, and they serve as each other's beards; he's under the impression that she's i) also gay or ii) in some other relationship that the united states government would frown on  
> b) steve tracks down some kind of face-changing technology like what natasha used in TWS so he can pretend to be peggy's stay-at-home hubby.  he wouldn't actually go with her to many SHIELD events though because he knows an awful lot of people (howard, at least a few of the howlies, etc.) and having to pretend not to know them would really drive home how awful secret time travel is  
> c) peggy goes up to howard like "look i'm tired of being hit on/being judged for being a single woman, i need to be fake married, NO marrying some rando and then ignoring him is not an option" and then he fakes her a marriage certificate to John Doe and she gets herself a ring.  any time someone asks she just looks them straight in the face and tells them she's married, and no she's not going to introduce them.  miraculously, SHIELD as a whole believes she _is_ married; popular theories include i) she's estranged from an enemy agent, with whom she's still in love; ii) she secretly married cap before his death but doesn't believe he's _actually_ dead and therefore won't acknowledge she's technically a widow; iii) ALIENS; iv) she's gay, that's why nobody can meet _him_ , but obviously she can't come out because she works for the government, how awful!    
> when steve tells everyone what really happened, after he rejoins the time he left, there's a great deal of chaos among the remaining SHIELD agents, as theories passed down by mentors or crafted through years of speculation are just... thrown straight out the window
> 
> steve probably does worry an awful lot about bucky.  every so often he goes to the future and spies on bucky to convince himself that he's not being the worst person ever in maintaining the timeline where bucky got horribly tortured and brainwashed.  bucky is, of course, aware of this, and at some point he arranges for sam to come up behind him and frogmarch him into the apartment they're definitely sharing so they can have a proper conversation, and also so he can (gently) mock steve for finding the one (1) girl who was interested in him and then STEALING A TIME TRAVEL DEVICE so he could stay with her
> 
> (this fic inspired in part by aphrodaisyacs' post on pifo discussing how Problematic leaving steve in the past would be)


End file.
